The private email correspondence of which Mr. Salza has posted judiciously selected portions, and which is now exposed below, arose from a larger set of correspondence which began before Christmas. Mr. Salza has also selected some portions of that email to publish on his Web site. The following might give readers a more just appreciation for what actually happened in that exchange.

It began as follows, with an email from me addressed to Mssrs Siscoe and Salza, around a year after their book appeared, in which my name is (ab)used around 200 hundred times. I decided to make sure they understood that for me, the past was the past, and I was moving on. I had no idea what their intentions were, but soon discovered...

From: Robert SiscoeSent: 26 December 2016 01:06To: John LaneSubject: Re: A Happy Christmas

Dear John,

Thank you very much for the kind e-mail. It appreciate it more than you know and I too apologize for any personal offenses I may have given you.

May you and your family have a very Merry Christmas.

In Christ,

Robert Siscoe

_________________________________________________________________

From: John SalzaSent: 27 December 2016 09:00To: John LaneSubject: Re: A Happy Christmas

Dear John:

Thank you for your kind note and I too wish you and your family many blessings this Christmas season.

I also thank you for your offer at a public retraction or clarification. We may disagree in our conclusions, but it is not reasonable or honest for one to criticize the quality of the scholarship we put into our book. To that end, if you would be willing to acknowledge the same (for example, that we have accurately compiled, addressed, synthesized, etc. the various theological opinions on a heretical Pope) – even though you disagree with our conclusions or applications – we would welcome such an “endorsement” of sorts. If you do not wish to do so, of course, I also understand.

If you ever get to the point of conceding that the determination of who validly holds public office in the Church is for the public judgment of that same Church, you would be a great and welcomed ally. It is certainly not too late to do so, and I would be the first to applaud you and welcome you. Many of us have overreacted at some point to the aberrations of the conciliar era. The only thing that matters is the truth. And perhaps the canonical process of getting rid of Francis – which we lay out in our book – has commenced.

In Christ, John___________________________________________________________________

I replied to Mr. Salza, and cc'd Robert Siscoe and two priests with whom I had recently discussed their book in person, both of whom had offered Mssrs Siscoe and Salza advice regarding the personal attacks they had in their draft, and which advice Mssrs Siscoe and Salza ignored.

I don't want to undo any of the good will that is present, so I won't comment upon your scholarship or your arguments, except to say that you have a great many things right, and as somebody who has studied these things for a quarter of a century, and is familiar with all of the texts, and who originated many of the thoughts and arguments, not to mention the texts themselves, that populate your book, I not only know a great deal more about all of this than you do, I also can see where you got your ideas. Indeed, many of them are John Daly's and mine, including the detailed arguments and supporting texts on heresy and how it is known, the indefectibility of the Church, especially of her hierarchy, the insistence that the Church retains her identity so that whatever we say about "the Conciliar Church" we cannot mean that the entire official Church is now a sect, nor that the traditional clergy constitute the hierarchy, nor that most of her members are heretics, nor that the mere expression of heresy suffices to strip one of membership, nor that all of the acts of non-Catholics claiming offices in the Church are in practice invalid (due to supplied jurisdiction in common error), etc. I could go on, but if you had been in the trenches fighting sede errors for the past two decades, as I have, you'd be as surprised as I am to see my work borrowed and then applied against my name, as if I were not the determined, long-term, public, opponent of Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn that I notoriously am. You might also be somewhat startled to be accused of lifting all of your material from the Internet, if like me, you knew that you were the one who scanned, OCR'd, and corrected, or commissioned the translations, then uploaded so much of it to the Internet.

I'm certainly not looking for any recognition or endorsement by you, and I would not ever have uttered any complaint (nor would I have had any even privately) if you had employed all of this material against what I call dogmatic sedevacantism, and left my name entirely unmentioned. I'd have celebrated it instead, even if you had put in all of the erroneous conclusions I believe are present. I am on record praising the work of the Italian SSPX priests in their book against sedevacantism, for example, and in fact I don't think I have ever criticised that book at all, even though obviously I do not agree with some of it. As somebody who sees the damage that dogmatic sedevacantism does to individuals and families, and who has bent every fibre of my being to combating it both publicly and privately, I would have had a strong motive to welcome your book as an aid in that battle...

Anyway, this is by way of explaining my intense annoyance at your book (not to mention Robert's CFN article accusing me of Stage 5 sedevacantism etc.). It's a missed opportunity, it threatens my own work by misrepresenting my position, and it gives ammunition to my opponents who are busy dragging people away from the SSPX in this country especially.

You cannot do anything about this now, so I am not demanding anything of you. You no doubt acted in good faith, which on judgement day I will be able to see, whereas now it is a complete blank mystery to me how you could have done so, and I look forward to that day when we will all, God willing, enjoy Him and each other for eternity.

The very amusing reality is that with what Cardinal Burke and Co. are doing, we're all looking completely irrelevant. I've been saying for many, many, years that we trads will likely not play any key role in the restoration of the Church, when it comes, as it inevitably will come, from Rome, contrary to the fanciful notions of some who imagine that the trad clergy will somehow act in some extraordinary fashion to sort the Church out. Well, it looks like we might be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Conciliar madness, and I for one am enjoying it immensely.

The emergence of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, a beautiful soul indeed, is another astonishing and hopeful sign, of course. There is much reason to hope, but whatever the short term holds, in the end we know that her Immaculate Heart will triumph! May God speed that day!

Yours in her Immaculate Heart,John Lane.

PS The only thing that could conceivably induce me to recognise Francis as pope would be a decree of an undoubted Roman Pontiff or of a general council approved by an undoubted Roman Pontiff. I'm sorry that my failure to agree with your opinion about Francis results in so much angst for you! Archbishop Lefebvre ordained Fr. Paul Morgan as a "moderate sede" (i.e. my own views, and I knew William Morgan, his father) and gave him permission not to mention JP2 in the Canon, so your stand is not that of the Archbishop. You picked the wrong windmill to tilt at.

From: Robert SiscoeSent: 05 January 2017 23:36To: John LaneSubject: Re: A Happy Christmas

John,

I also don't want to undo any good will, but you need to know that we did not get our arguments from you or John Daly. I have actually not read a lot of your writings, and I don't think John has either. We got our theology from the books we have, and our arguments are simply the application of that traditional theology to the errors of the Sedes. If you see similarities between some of your arguments and ours, it is not because we copied anything from you, but because we are (hopefully) basing our arguments on the same theology.

In an earlier e-mail (several months ago) you made the statement that we don't have the books we quoted from. I don't know why you would have made that statement since it, too, is entirely false. I have attached a photo sheet containing pictures the primary books we used in our research so that you won't keep spreading that falsehood (which is clearly intended to denigrate us). There are many more books I have could have included, but these were the main ones we used, as you should realize if you paid attention to the footnotes.

The second edition of True or False Pope? will be out soon. It is greatly expanded (about 130 additional pages), includes many never-before-translated citations (ones you won't find online), and has an Introduction from a very interesting person. This person reached out to us after thoroughly studying the book, which we didn't even know he had purchased. His name will be on the cover.

If you haven't read my work, then that would explain how you managed to represent me as holding the opposite of what I hold on several key points.

I am amazed that you would even consider publishing a new edition without ensuring that the errors the first one contains have been eliminated!

Yours in the Immaculate,John Lane._____________________________________________________________________

Mr. Siscoe then demanded that I name the errors, and that is how the correspondence became acrimonious.

Once I discovered that Mssrs Siscoe and Salza were intending to publish a new edition of their book, containing as it does countless errors against Roman theology and Church history, as well as numerous abusive and erroneous judgements about me personally, I decided to try and convince them of some of their errors, but alas, to no avail.

I'll happily, indeed joyfully, engage with you on theology (moral and dogmatic) on the following conditions.

1. Two SSPX priests who are competent in ecclesiology agree to adjudicate 2. You commit to correcting your book prior to the second edition in any points that the two priests decide

I suggest that Fr. Gleize would be an excellent choice for one of the censors, but as far as I am concerned Bishop Fellay and/or the seminary rectors are free to appoint anybody they like. We can progress as quickly or as tardily as you like.

Let's do this properly, in adult company, with nowhere to hide.

Let me know your decision.

Wishing you a blessed Epiphany,John._________________________________________________________________________

John, you didn't answer Robert's very simple challenge, but passed the buck to SSPX priests (which would include some of their theologians who already reviewed and approved our book). Robert asked you to point out the theological errors, in your opinion, that exist in our book. So please do so. This should be quite easy for you given your many years of study and your familiarity with our book. Please cite the erroneous theological proposition (in our book) and then the correct theological position (taught by the Church or theological consensus). Cite verbatim paragraphs and page numbers from our book and from the Church/theologians. You can start with the top five theological errors. Then we will take you seriously and go from there. As you say, then we will all have nowhere to hide.

I think you've perhaps forgotten that we have been down this path before, and the result was lots of personal abuse, no clarity, and then you edited and published parts of our discussion along with more personal abuse. Your book fails morally in the same way. This is why if we have a serious discussion we'll be discussing moral theology as well as dogmatics. You don't know what the moral law is in several important aspects, and you need to learn it before you continue setting a profoundly bad example to Christians and, to compound it, associating the SSPX with your sins. Your recent abuse of Fr. Kramer illustrates the same ignorance of the moral law. You cannot keep a law that you haven't heard of, I suppose.

I forgive you for everything, no problem. But I'm not entering into the same mess again. If you take the crisis in the Church seriously, which means that you recognise that it represents a profound mystery, and that the only proper way to analyse it is in the light of Roman Theology, then you will want to have a formal and open discussion about it.

One example of a doctrinal point which you absolutely trash is the fact that the magisterium is protected from dangerous error by a special doctrinal providence, in the phrase of Cardinal Franzelin (and Billot follows him), which means that the pope cannot teach heresy, even "non-infallibly". This is why the theologians (i.e. the Roman ones, not the Gallicans) only ever consider the hypothetical possibility of a pope disappearing into heresy as a private person. So, there are three classes of open expression of doctrine, not two: 1. Universally binding doctrinal profession by pope or general council, which is infallible per se. 2. Private doctrinal expressions such as the pope giving a sermon, which means he is not addressing the Church as such and he is not acting publicly as pope. He may, conceivably, if you take the view that popes can fall into heresy, express a dangerous idea in such a manner. 3. Everything official (i.e. magisterial) in between, which is not infallible yet also cannot, in Franzelin's express opinion, be dangerous. So, popes acting as popes can err in fact, or in some unimportant doctrinal aspect, but they could only express heresy, for example, as a private person.

This is the doctrine favoured and approved by Rome, and the alternative idea cannot be found in theology books except for pre-1870 Gallican sources.

You might conceivably be justified, if you were a well-educated cleric, in departing from this doctrine with diffidence, caution, and very, very, good arguments. What is totally unjustifiable, indeed it constitutes crass irresponsibility at the very minimum, is to build up a different doctrine based on your own (very shallow, very narrow, and very badly sourced - e.g. Dollinger) reading of history, as you do in your book. Because of this bad method, it is no surprise to see you recycling long-exploded Gallican, Protestant, and Old Catholic lies against the papacy, and then praising Dollinger as a Church theologian and historian. The bad method led you to a very bad outcome. If you had started with Bellarmine, for example, you'd have discovered that Dollinger's lies had been refuted hundreds of years before he saw the light of day. But none of this could have happened if you had decided to learn theology from the theologians, instead of working it out yourself.

That will do as an opener, and if you respond in any way other than to say that you agree to my terms, then I won't reply to you. You're either serious or you're not, and my terms are so obviously reasonable, and easy to implement, that a refusal to agree to them is a serious argument against your good will, I'm sorry. If you have a good answer to what I have written, agree to the terms, embarrass me with the answer, with the approval of the two priests who know their ecclesiology, and I will be disarmed and silenced. What have you got to lose, that is not something you'd be better off without anyway?

Yours in the Immaculate, who alone has destroyed all heresies,John Lane._______________________________________________________________________

Robert then replied with what can only be described as a giant dodge of the substantive issues raised, focusing instead on side points:

Why am not surprised that you come out of the gate with false accusations and nothing to back them up? I want you to read this carefully. This is probably going to be my last correspondence with you. Here is what you wrote:

“Because of this bad method, it is no surprise to see you … praising Dollinger as a Church theologian and historian.”

You provided not a shred of evidence to back up your allegation, and that is because none exists. We never praised Dollinger in the book (or anywhere else). I did a quick search of the book, and here is what we do say about him:

“Döllinger never accepted the dogma of papal infallibility and on April 18, 1871, one year after the close of the First Vatican Council, he was excommunicated by name for heresy; and although he never officially joined the schismatic Old Catholic Church, Döllinger’s writings contributed greatly to its establishment.”

“One of the main voices opposing the doctrine was that of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, a fierce opponent of papal infallibility.

“Because the propagation of heresy is such a serious assault on the Faith of the Church, Fr. Augustine sets forth four categories to morally distinguish the types of “propagators of heresy” (can. 2316): “Credentes are such as externally profess the errors of heretics, e.g., by asserting that Luther or Döllinger were correct in their views, even though they may not know the particular errors of these leaders.

In a footnote, we referenced a comment Dollinger made about the quote from Pope Adrian (the quote you falsely claimed was “invented” by the author of the 1904 book, and then publicly denigrated Fr. Boulet for citing). The footnote referred to a statement of Dollinger concerning an historical matter (one that did not help our position, but that we wanted to mentioned for the sake of fairness), and were careful to include a note at the end of the footnote cautioning the reader that Dollinger denied papal infallibility, and therefore one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his judgments. Here is the footnote.

“According to Church historian and theologian Döllinger (writing under the pen name “Janus”), this comment was made while Pope Adrian was a Professor of Theology in Louvain prior to his election to the pontificate. Döllinger notes that the statement was well-known at the time since it was included in his principal work (see “The Pope and the Council,” by “Janus,” i.e., Johannes Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger), second edition (Rivingtons; London; Oxford; and Bambridge, 1869), p. 376. We should note that Döllinger denied the dogma of papal infallibility before and after it was defined. So while his historical research and facts may be of use, one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his judgment.

So as you can see, your comment that we “praised Dollinger” is totally false. I had already heard that you were spreading that lie, but I didn’t bother to look into it or respond. If John and I bothered responding to a small fraction of the lies and calumny being spread about us and the book by the members of your sect, we would have time for nothing else. Fr. Kramer spends his entire day sitting at his computer and spreading complete lies about us via social media, large group e-mails and videos (claiming we hold positions that we directly refute in the book), and you claim we “abuse” him for responding occasionally? But John and I do get to experience a little of what Bishop Fellay has to deal with from the Resistance.

Point 2

Regarding heresy and errors in papal writings and utterance, you wrote: “there are three classes of open expression of doctrine, not two.”

Reply: We never claim there are only two. On the contrary, we explicitly say there are three. Here is what we say in the book:

“Therefore, when considering whether a Pope can teach errors to the Church regarding faith and morals, we must make three distinctions:1) A Pope teaching as a private person.2) A Pope teaching as Pope on matters of faith or morals, but not intending to define a doctrine. 3) A Pope teaching as Pope, defining a doctrine on faith or morals, to be held by the universal Church. It is only in the last instance that the charism of infallibility will prevent the Pope from erring.”

John, at this point you are 0 and 2 with the alleged “errors” in our book. Your entire e-mail was nothing but false accusations, followed by insults for doing what you falsely accused us of (just like you did to Fr. Boulet).

This is why I am not going to bother debating you. If you think there are errors in the book, quote the book directly and then provide an authoritative citation showing how we are mistaken. If you do so, we will look into it. In the meantime, please don’t bother us any more with your false accusations and stawman arguments. We don’t have time for it, and neither does anyone else.

I pray that God will greatly humble you and cure you of your intellectual pride.

Robert Siscoe_____________________________________________________________________________

As anybody can see, the discussion cannot remain polite, or objective, but has to descend to personal attacks, judgements, and the adoption of a superior tone whilst accusing me of pride. The challenge to debate before two experts in ecclesiology, appointed by the SSPX, is escaped neatly if shamelessly. It will be apparent to all, equally clearly, why this challenge was made, and why it was not taken up, when one sees the work of Fr. Gleize on the pope heretic thesis. That is, Mssrs Siscoe and Salza and their few supporters in the Society simply do not accept Roman Theology, whereas Fr. Gleize and other genuine experts in ecclesiology do.

Robert, half of your book is spent "proving"from Dollinger-like "history" that many popes have been heretics, and taught it officially to the Church. Your reply to this doctrinal point is to dodge it.

Do you, or do you not, accept the doctrine of the Roman theologians that nothing dangerous to faith or morals can come from the Roman Pontiff, even when the Roman Pontiff does not speak infallibly?

You obviously do not accept this doctrine. No wonder you don't want a formal discussion with independent moderators.

As for the Dollinger praise, your position is that Dollinger is a Church theologian and historian (he isn't) who has good factual data, and you are implicitly recommending him on that basis, but yes, you put a fig-leaf over that praise and recommendation by warning the reader that he later went into heresy. Robert, he went into heresy because of his bad history and theology, which you share.

This expresses it all perfectly clearly: "So while his historical research and facts may be of use, one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his judgment."

In other words, his data is good, but don't accept his judgments incautiously. But you DO accept his judgments. Your theology is his, with the reservation that you think that if, and only, if, the pope speaks infallibly, his doctrinal instruction cannot be dangerous to the faithful. And that's the point at issue, as is sufficiently clear from my email, and which you either do not understand or you do not wish to be candid about. Either way, you've no business writing for Catholics.

Bellarmine refers to the "Adrian VI" quote and says it is "altogether erroneous and proximate to heresy." But what is Bellarmine to you? You've got Dollinger and Viollet.____________________________________________________________________________

This is my last e-mail. If you think there are errors in the book, 1) quote the book directly, 2) state the alleged error, 3) back up your position with an authoritative citation, and we will gladly look into it. So far you have skipped 1 and 3 and substituted 2 with a false accusation.

Regarding Bellarmine's reference to the Adrian quote, we include that in the second edition. It comes right after your false accusation that the quote was "invented" three centuries after Bellarmine addressed it, and your denigration of Fr. Boulet for citing it.

From: John LaneSent: Friday, January 20, 2017 10:56 AMTo: Robert Siscoe; John Salza Cc: [Four SSPX Members]Subject: The theological/canonical/church history censors of TOFP

Hello Robert, and John,

Please cool down!

It is inconceivable that you could write 700 pages of detailed explanation of theology, canon law, and history without any errors. It is therefore not an "accusation" to say that there are errors, and you should not react by attacking anybody who says that there are. If you could both cool down, and realize that the world won't end if you are found to be mistaken about a few things, you'd both enjoy life a lot more. You have a lot of things right. You’re not infallible. You are less infallible even than the magisterium that you accuse of countless errors in your book.

Let's be real. You have a 700 page book which has some PR-driven approbations. You both seem to be under the impression that your book went through some kind of theological censoring process, akin to the nihil obstat and imprimatur of canon law. You refer to "some of their theologians who already reviewed and approved our book." It is one thing to read a book through and give it praise, it is another thing entirely to take responsibility for its accuracy: accuracy in fact (especially about other persons), or in history, or in law, or in theology.

So, my question is, if you do really think some competent men properly reviewed your book, at least for canon law, theology, and Church history, so as to ensure that it was squeaky clean, and then approved it for publication, then you should be able to name them. In the formal process under canon law, the nihil obstat and the imprimatur are given by named men who take responsibility for their work. I know a lot of SSPX priests and I have spoken with every one of those whom I know, who have been involved in some way or other in your book, and so far I have found not one who admits to having read it through before publication, let alone one who will specifically take responsibility for the content. One said he was consulted on two chapters, another on four chapters, and another on one or two chapters, etc. I am not surprised by this at all, because it's inconceivable that any priest let through some of the egregious errors the book contains. (What you did with Sacramentum ordinis alone is extremely serious.) Two priests have told me they advised you to remove the personal attacks, but to no avail. This tells me that you weren't in a "taking advice" mood when putting the book together.

So, who are the priests who will say, "Yes, I read it carefully before publication, and I assert that this book is accurate in canon law, theology, and Church history"?

I'm prepared to debate the substance of the book, in the presence of two competent SSPX priests, and abide by their judgement. You counter by claiming that you already have that kind of approval from the SSPX. I say you don't. Prove me wrong. Name the censors.

Robert, I am glad to hear that you are joining with Bellarmine in condemning that quote from Adriaan Florenz. (You are not helping your case by pointing out that I erred in calling the quote "invented." Nobody's disputing that, we all know the provenance of the quote now, and it doesn't aid your case any further to continue emphasising it. All anybody cares about is if the quote is by a pope, and if it's orthodox. It's neither.)

I'll send you a list of errors, with evidence, soon enough. In the mean time, let's get the decks cleared of this more fundamental question of whether you have any prima facie basis for your confidence that the book is perfect.

Yours in the Immaculate,John.

Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:51 am

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Re: Email correspondence with John Salza and Robert Siscoe

This exchange continued, until one priest involved declared that I am a serial calumniator, and that ended it. He didn't, of course, tell me what my supposed calumnies are, or explain how they constituted calumnies (i.e. deliberate lies, about another person). Actually, what he complained about were disagreements. But this book, True or False Pope?, is a hot topic with these few priests who are anti-sede. There's no middle ground. You're either with it or you're a calumniator. You either take the abuse offered by Mssrs Siscoe and Salza, or you're no good. So, you're no good, because two ignoramuses say so, and if you refuse to accept it, you only prove how no darned good you are.

I would never have published any of this but of course John Salza and Robert Siscoe have selected carefully the parts of these exchanges which they think make them look good, and have included, incredibly, the assault on my name by this priest who has previously provided another email designed to discredit me, which they also published some months ago. He writes, they publish.

I took the advice offered last year, as you know. I was not only content to let the numerous calumnies against me go, I wrote to the authors at Christmas and offered them peace, without conditions, even offering to retract anything I had said which offended them.

Neither demanded anything. Nor did they provide a reciprocal offer. Not that I expected one – they could not, in the circumstances, make such an offer, for reasons that this email exchange has revealed to all.

Then Robert told me a new edition of the book is about to come out, and implied that it would not be corrected, but only extended. So, the offence is to be renewed, and you and other Society figures are to renew your approval of this sinful attack on my character.

That is why we are now having this conversation.

Father, you are the aggressors and I am defending myself. You call my criticisms “calumnies” and you treat me as if I were assaulting some poor innocents standing by who wouldn’t know what the fuss was all about. These men published lies about me, and call me a schismatic. Now they propose to re-publish this filth, with your approval. You are making yourself a party to this renewed assault, this time with open eyes. Unlike the past, when I presumed (and you confirmed, by letting me know you only read four chapters) that this kind of filth must have been imposed upon the names of you, Bishop Fellay, and others by deceit or incompetence, you cannot plead ignorance.

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